“This is the only place I’ve been where we don’t have a playbook”

When Todd Monken was brought in to take the reigns of the Cowboy offense after Dana Holgorsen departed for West Virginia, there was no playbook to look at.

According to the Tulsa World, Monken learned the offense by getting with assistants and quarterback Brandon Weeden in the off season to learn the ropes, and then adjusted some things schematically to fit his taste.

During a recent golf outing, Weeden, now a rookie with the Browns, admitted that adjusting to a playbook (a thick NFL playbook at that), was one of the biggest changes for him.

“We give our guys what they need in increments – formational stuff, play stuff, whatever for their individual meetings. They have a book that they take notes on, but as far as this is the Oklahoma State offense and this is what we do, no.”

Over a year on the job an still no playbook. Monken says that he encounters situations every once in a while where it would be nice to have a playbook, but doesn’t believe that having one provides any advantages. In fact at times he thinks it can be “overkill”

“But then there are other times that you are like, do we really need it?Is it just a waste of time to make sure that we have just this huge binder of how we do things? I don’t know. Somewhere in there lies the middle.”

“Did I think at times in the NFL with that big playbook, was it overkill? Yes, I think it was way too much information. You are not going to look at all that.”

Instead of ink on paper, Monken says that plays are taught by using film and getting players plenty of practice reps.